Streamline Firm Management with Legal Applications

Most law firms realize the benefit of using Practice and Case Management software. These tools help keep a firm organized, track performance, and balance workloads. They’re created especially for law firms, so—while they deal with quotidian details—they’re organized by case or matter.

Smaller firms may rely on this type of software because they don’t have the resources to put toward a case manager or law office administrator. Mid-size and larger firms may have managers, administrators, and other support staff who use this software as a tool for organization.

Whether a law firm is small or large, Practice and Case Management software can make a profound difference in efficiency of operation.

What Case and Practice Management software can do for you

Case Management software concentrates on doing one thing well: managing cases. These applications store information about matters and cases in a searchable database. Most Case Management software allows users to check for conflicts of interest and statutes of limitations.

Practice Management software can help a law firm with case management, as well as other day-to-day tasks, such as calendaring and contact management—even document assembly.

Some law firms cobble together their practice management technology by using a variety of specialized applications, such as Quickbooks for billing and Outlook for contact management. This can work up to a point, but one benefit of using Case or Practice Management software is that everything is in one place. And, many Practice Management software options integrate with other applications (such as Outlook) for ease of use.

The key is determining what needs your law firm has and finding the right software to address those needs.

Popular Practice and Case Management software

Here are some popular applications that will help law firms manage their practices and cases:

1. PracticeMaster: This option is made by Tabs3, so it integrates with their billing software. It also provides calendaring, conflicts and contact management, and document assembly, as well as research, email, and phone call tracking. Other programs with which it integrates include Quickbooks, CalendarRules, Worldox, and Outlook. PracticeMaster works well for small to medium law firms.

2. Needles: A good solution for law firms of all sizes, Needles features calendaring, document scanning and assembly, client contact information, case and matter management, and time and billing.

3. Time Matters: LexisNexis is the parent company of Time Matters, which works best for medium-sized law firms. It provides calendaring; task, client, and project/matter management; and calendaring. It integrates with Office suite as well as other LexisNexis applications.

4. LawBase: This software handles case and practice management for firms of all sizes. It also integrates with HotDocs and Outlook.

Questions to ask

Because Practice and Case Management software will have a direct effect on everyday issues, it’s important that law firms select a program that works for their specific needs. Here are some questions that can help you narrow the possibilities:
• If we’re already using Outlook, Quickbooks, and other applications, what other features in your software can we benefit from?

• What features are included in your application? Calendaring? Contact management? Conflicts of interest checks? Document assembly?

• Does your software integrate with applications we’re already using?

• Do you provide a client portal?

• Is customization possible?

• Is your software hosted on servers or in the cloud? Can I access your application remotely?

• Do you provide regular backups? At what intervals? How often do you upgrade your software?

• What happens if I have a maintenance issue? Do you provide training or support?

If you need assistance determining which type of software has the features you need, or if you want help integrating new applications with your existing system, Legal Workspace’s application support specialists can help. You can take advantage of Legal Workspace’s Software as a Service licensing model for certain Case Management or Practice Management applications. Legal Workspace can also move existing licenses for software to its cloud environment.

The work that goes into the daily management of a law firm can be streamlined with Case and Practice Management software. There are many good programs on the market that will save your law firm time and effort. The key is to select the program that integrates well with the applications you currently use and that provides additional features that you need.

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Workflow on your Workspace: Become More Productive and Efficient

Are you using your software to its full potential?

 

Many law firms own legal software applications to assist them with case management, time and billing, and accounting. The question is: Are you using your software to its full potential?

Most law firms use only a portion of their software’s features and integrations without realizing and maximizing the software’s full capacity. The application support specialists at Legal Workspace estimate that most firms only use about 40 percent of the functionality of workflow automation or case management software.

Law firms are particularly poised to take advantage of workflow automation because many of their processes are methodical and follow a set procedure. Developing repeating workflows not only increases efficiency, but also ensures accuracy.

To figure out what can be automated, firms should define their repetitive workflows and problem areas.

Here are five guidelines to help you understand how automation can work for you:

1. Standardize and implement. Different practice areas have different processes that are methodical or repetitive. Determine which processes fall into that category, identify common issues, then streamline them to make procedures standard.

Here’s an example: Most firms repeat the same process every time they take on a new client. The firm will go through an approval process, run a conflict check, and finally proceed with the client intake process. Those steps can be standardized to prevent bottlenecks and keep the process on track.

2. Checklists. Practice areas typically have sets of milestones or tasks that need to be accomplished. Two good examples of events that benefit from using a checklist are 1) when a new case is entered into the system and 2) when a case is closed.

 In both scenarios, there are many small to-dos that need to be completed in a certain order. At the beginning of the relationship, firms need to set up the file and the billing, assign staff to the case, send a thank-you letter to the client, and countless other administrative tasks. When the case has closed, there’s a similar laundry list of items to do, such as finalizing billing, document storage, and more.

Rather than having an individual keep track of all the small tasks—or hoping that everyone remembers their responsibilities and performs them in the correct order—a checklist makes certain that every task gets accomplished and that nothing happens twice.

3. Document generation and file-sharing. The application support specialists at Legal Workspace have seen data privacy issues arise out of human error when people recycle electronic documents, using them repeatedly for the same purpose. Let’s say an attorney pulls up Jane Smith’s document because he needs to create the same type of document for John Jones. He searches for all of Jane’s information and thinks he replaces it with John’s new information in the document—but he gets interrupted mid-stream and forgets to replace Jane’s social security number. Not only is this scenario inefficient, compromises sensitive data.

Increase accuracy, efficiency, and security when you standardize document templates in your firm based on practice area. Use case management or practice management apps, such as Amicus Attorney®, Practice Master ®, or Time Matters ®, to pull data and autofill the documents accurately. Then, share your files with the appropriate parties using a secure platform in the cloud, such as Legal Workspace.

4. Calendar templates. This workflow feature helps attorneys track standard tasks and deadlines that need to happen on a case. For example, a personal injury attorney might construct a statute of limitations calendar template, which includes the deadline and reminders going backwards six months, 90 days, the month, and the week before the deadline hits.

Automating reminders allows attorneys to worry about the finer points of their cases, rather than the administrative details.

5. Triggers. Often in a law firm, one action leads to another action. A more advanced feature in some practice management systems allow users to set up “triggers,” which simply means that once you indicate within the system that a certain event has occurred, another action that relates to the case automatically pops up. For example, if a status of a case changes, a trigger would prompt users to take the next logical step.

 Taking advantage of the features that likely already exist as part of your case management or practice management software is a simple way to increase efficiency, accuracy, and security. If you need assistance determining what you can do and how to do it, Legal Workspace’s application support specialists can help you fine tune your automation so firms can maximize their billable hours. Reach out now.

 

 

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What’s Killing Your Law Firm’s Productivity?

According to LexisNexis, the majority of non-billable hours are spent on practice management or administrative tasks. Process and workflow automation is as important for law firms as it is for any industry. Although your “product” is not tangible, it is nevertheless measurable. The “commodity” produced by attorneys is knowledge. This knowledge is often in the form of advice given, agreements achieved and documents produced. However, the value of all of these is usually measured in time. Therefore, in order to remain competitive, maximize productivity and minimize costs, attorneys must manage proactively and strategically the production of the time commodity.

Time management is where case management software can be of great benefit and provide a significant return on investment.  

What if you could:

— Ensure that you never miss a deadline?

— Generate documents (and find them later) with only a couple of easy steps?

— Create billing entries from any task (documents, calendar, notes, research, etc.) with just one button?

— Quickly turn those time entries into invoices that can be sent via email for faster payment?

— Find any document, file, note, message, etc. with one global search field?

— Access all items related to a case (calendar, documents, email messages, notes, contacts, etc.) from one window?

 

Practice Management Applications and Document Generation Software

 One key to maximizing revenue is to maximize the number of billable hours, and reduce the amount of time spent on non-billable activities. Although some of your non-billable tasks may not be related to a case, such as practice management and administration, often time is spent on case-related actions for which you would not want to bill your client, such as searching for a document, email, or notes that may not be organized as well as they should be.

At a rate of $300/hour, 10 minutes spent searching for stealth information is $50 of billable time wasted. You can easily see how this wasted time, protracted out by several cases, can result in a significant decrease in productivity and, ultimately, profitability.

 The good news is that Legal Case Management and Legal Accounting software can greatly reduce your number of non-billable hours as well as maximize your production of billable time.  There are several systems available that will help you accomplish all of the goals listed above, and more.

For case management we recommend Amicus (for the smaller law firm) and Time Matters (for medium to large firms). Both programs offer comprehensive, efficient case management and legal document generation to help you work more efficiently and meet deadlines.

 

Billing and Accounting Software for Attorneys

If you’re working long hours to increase revenue and not seeing a return, it might be time to look into a legal billing application. Thankfully there are many time and billing software options for attorneys to ensure you’re capturing all of your billable time and easily generating invoices for individual cases or en masse.

For small firms, Tabs 3 and PCLaw are complete time, billing and accounting systems with functions to meet the unique needs of legal billing and accounting. PCLaw has the added (optional) benefit of a front office module which also handles case management functions. For large law firms, Juris provides the scalability, flexibility and reporting requirements unique to firms with multiple attorneys, a large support staff and complex billing requirements. These systems provide easy methods for capturing all of your billable time and easily generating invoices either on an individual basis, or en masse.

These apps will help you capture more hours, maximize revenue and control costs with fully integrated time entry, billing, payables, receivables and management reports.

 

 Leveraging the Cloud

Most legal applications require dedicated space on your server. That’s where Legal Workspace comes in. Our clients find that maintaining their own server’s security, upgrades, repairs, support maintenance and uptime is time-consuming and costly. With Legal Workspace, we manage your server and IT needs so you can spend more time practicing law and less time worrying about server and IT maintenance.

Our secure legal cloud is the perfect environment to host your virtual law firm. Work from anywhere using any device to maximize efficiency while on-the-go.

 

Legal Workspace is a complete solution created exclusively for law firms.

— Full IT management and maintenance

— Enterprise-grade security to protect against online threats

— Access Legal Workspace from anywhere using any device

— Military grade data centers located in the US

— Easy and affordable scalability as your firm grows

— Host all of your legal and business applications, no on-site servers required

 

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